For This Boy

The next morning Hannah and Elkanah rose early and bowed in worship before the LORD. Then they returned home to Ramah. Elkanah had relations with Hannah, and the account says that the LORD remembered her. In the course of time, she conceived and gave birth to a son.

She named him Samuel. “Because I have asked for him from the LORD.” The name carried the request she had made in Shiloh into the life of the child born in Ramah. Before there was anything else to tell about him, there was this account of why she had called him Samuel.

When the time came for the annual sacrifice, Elkanah prepared to go up with his household and fulfill his vow. Hannah did not go with them. She remained at home with the boy she was nursing. The journey that had so often brought her grief would have to wait.

“After the boy is weaned,” she said to her husband, “I will take him to appear before the LORD and to stay there permanently.” She named both the time of the journey and what would follow it. Samuel would go to Shiloh when she had weaned him. He would remain there when the visit was over.

“Do what you think is best,” her husband Elkanah replied, “and stay here until you have weaned him. Only may the LORD confirm His word.” So Hannah stayed and nursed her son. The account passes over those days with that one ordinary task, repeated until the time she had named arrived.

Her earlier journeys had been measured by the annual sacrifice. This one waited on the boy. The vow made in bitter distress had not disappeared when she received what she had asked for; she spoke of it now as the reason for bringing him. Her husband agreed that she should remain at home until he was weaned.

When that time came, Hannah took Samuel with her. She also brought a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine. The provisions for the sacrifice are carefully named, and among them the account keeps returning to the boy. He was still young when she brought him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh.

They slaughtered the bull and brought Samuel to Eli. Hannah stood again before the priest who had watched her praying. This time she identified herself by that earlier visit. The person who could connect the woman before him with the woman beside his chair was Hannah herself.

“Please, my lord,” said Hannah, “as surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the LORD. I prayed for this boy, and since the LORD has granted me what I asked of Him, I now dedicate the boy to the LORD. For as long as he lives, he is dedicated to the LORD.”

Her words reached back to the prayer and forward to the whole of Samuel’s life. The boy was there before Eli, the particular child for whom she had prayed. Hannah named the answer she had received and the dedication she had promised. There was no later date left to arrange.

So they worshiped the LORD there. Hannah had brought Samuel to the place where he would stay, and had told Eli why he belonged there. Before the return to Ramah, she would pray again. The woman Eli had once watched in silence now had words of rejoicing to speak.